Excerpt

Moons' Dreaming

Book 1 of "Children of the Rock"
byMarguerite Krause & Susan Sizemore

(From Five Star Speculative Fiction - November 2003)

Chapter One

"There's no other choice. We'll
have to kill her."

From his position by the door in the
small audience chamber, Dael, captain of the Rhenlan guard, looked
on helplessly as King Hion made his pronouncement. Now he understood
why this meeting of the king's council had been convened here,
rather than the more public space of the great hall of Edian Castle.
Better to announce this decision in comparative privacy, and let
the public spectacle wait for the death itself.

Light streamed in through the tall
windows on the southern and eastern walls, drawing unexpected
glints and sparkles from the king's jeweled belt and the silver
inlay in his son Damon's dagger hilt. Ledo, Hion's brother, wore
so much gold thread that his sleeves glowed in the sunshine. In
contrast, Vissa's black gown was enlivened only by its red sash
and the embroidered patterns on sleeves and hem that indicated
her rank as first among the Redmothers of Rhenlan. The Brownmother
beside her wore a brown-marked robe far less elaborate than that
of the court Redmother, but her manner conveyed similar dignity.
Next to the stately women, the three men looked like bright-hued
butterflies.

Not one of the king's councilors spoke
up to protest Hion's decision.

Dael swallowed, his mouth dry even
though he had no right to be surprised. He had seen this tragedy
coming. He had also been fool enough to hope that somehow the
situation would change, or that someone on the council would make
the effort to find a way to avoid this logical, but heartless,
solution.

Prince Damon fixed his steady gaze
on the king. "You realize, Father, that she's hardly more
than a child."

"She's a Shaper, the daughter
of a ruling house." Hion leaned forward in the oaken chair
that served as this chamber's throne, and rested his hands on
his knees. "If her mother had taught her the first thing
about responsibility and loyalty we wouldn't be facing this crisis."
His gaze traveled the circle of his advisors; first Damon, then
Ledo, Brownmother Thena, and finally Vissa. "Isn't that so,
Redmother? According to tradition?"

"It is a very new tradition,
Your Majesty," the old woman replied, her expression pinched
with disapproval. "But technically, you are correct."

"No one asked how old the law
was. It's a law. That's all that matters," Damon said. "Surely
there are precedents."

"There is no precedent in my
memory." Given the perfection of a Redmother's trained memory,
the statement was inarguable, and Damon fell silent.

In spite of himself, Dael felt a faint
stirring of hope. Prince Damon inevitably supported his father's
policies; any protest he made would, in the end, only clarify
and bolster Hion's original intentions. Duke Ledo rarely said
a word in council meetings, for fear of losing favor with his
brother or nephew. Brownmother Thena clearly felt out of her depth
in this discussion; her areas of expertise and responsibility
were the health and welfare of the citizens of the town, not the
fate of foreign princesses. Dael himself was not an official member
of the king's council, so his opinion would not be welcome in
this discussion. He attended the meetings only to provide information
when requested, and because it was the most efficient way for
Hion and Damon to keep him informed of decisions that he, as captain
of the guard, would have to enforce.

Redmother Vissa, however, possessed
the wisdom, and perhaps the strength of will, to change Hion's
mind.

"Before the fire bear plague,
this situation would never have occurred," Vissa said, her
mouth a thin, bitter line. "Before the plague, Keepers were
content to keep their lands and herds, and Shaper families were
honored to govern their own small kingdoms. No one argued over
ownership of land!"

Ledo's eyes widened at the tone of
Vissa's critical words. Dael's brief surge of hope faded into
despair once more. He agreed with the Redmother-life had been
safer and saner, a person's duty to the gods clearer and easier,
before the plague. Unfortunately, Dael had observed over the years
that appeals to tradition rarely worked with Hion. Vissa had never
learned that lesson. Perhaps she couldn't. Her life was devoted
to maintaining the continuity of their culture; to her, old ways
were, by definition, always better than new.

"We live after the plague,"
Hion replied, "not before it. New situations require new
traditions. Redmother Vissa, you are old enough to remember the
villages that had to be abandoned, the chaos that threatened until
the Eighteen Kingdoms were consolidated into three larger, more
manageable tracts. We must not allow that chaos to threaten again.
Recite the terms of the law."

The Redmother grew still, her expression
blank as she searched her mind for the words the king sought.

"In the event of a border dispute,"
Vissa recited at last, "in the absence of a high king or
queen, and to avoid disrupting the lives of the Keepers of either
kingdom, the Shaper families concerned will either exchange goods
for land, exchange land for land, cede the territory in question
to an adjacent neighbor, or arrange a union of their families
in marriage and bequeath the territory to the offspring of that
couple. If either side proves false to its vows in this matter,
both land and life are forfeit."

Damon shook his head. To Dael, his
expression seemed sincerely regretful. "If only Queen Dea
had been reasonable."

Hion scowled. "She's not fit
to rule. Anyone can see she'll never make proper use of that forest.
We made a more than generous offer, and how were we repaid? With
treachery."

Ledo cleared his throat. "Are
we quite convinced that Princess Emlie was part of the plot?"

"Tell him, Captain," Damon
commanded.

Dael braced himself and took a single
step forward, away from his unobtrusive post by the doorway. Leave
it to Ledo to ask that question; one for which Hion had already
determined the answer. In the spring, a pair of merchants from
a tiny village in Dherrica, only a stone's throw across the border
from Rhenlan, came to Edian to ask for assistance in driving off
a band of Abstainers. Hion sent two guard patrols to take care
of the matter, a generous and sensible response to a common threat.
What Dael hadn't expected was that Hion would then claim the village
and its surrounding lands for Rhenlan, on the grounds that he
was obviously better able to protect the population. Dea obviously
hadn't expected it, either. She sent Princess Emlie with arguments
to counter Hion's demands, and for a while, a peaceful settlement,
perhaps marriage for the two heirs, had seemed imminent. Then
negotiations had broken down, and Dael had been forced to deal
with the results.

"Several men in the force that
attacked our patrol were members of the princess's escort,"
Dael told Ledo. "When I confronted her, she admitted that
she had sent them to the border, to secure a way for her to leave
Rhenlan."

Dael nodded. He did not believe that
the young princess had a malicious intent to deceive Hion and
Damon; she had simply been overwhelmed by an impossible situation,
and sought to escape her responsibilities. However, to say that
Emlie hadn't meant any harm did nothing to change the consequences
of her decisions.

"There's no denying two of our
guards are dead," Hion said bluntly, and dismissed Dael to
his post with a wave of his hand.

"It will accomplish nothing."
Vissa turned away from the young prince and appealed directly
to Hion. "If Emlie dies, how will you ever reach an agreement
with Dea? Once there is blood between you-"

"There already is," Hion
snapped.

Dael clenched his fists at his side,
torn between his loyalty to Hion, and his conviction that, in
this instance, his king was making a mistake. Hion had dedicated
his life to protecting all of his people, from the lowest guard
to the richest merchant, and held all ruling Shapers to the same
high standard. Dea had failed to defend the villagers, and Emlie
had failed to properly exercise her authority over the guards
under her command. Queen and princess both had, however briefly,
forsaken their vows. When vows failed, only law could provide
a semblance of justice-but Dea and Emlie, in their refusal to
accept any of Rhenlan's offered terms, had turned their backs
on the law, too.

"What else can we do?" Damon
asked the Redmother, his words an uncanny echo of Dael's tortured
thoughts. "As her mother's representative in Rhenlan she
has full authority over her people. With authority comes responsibility."

"It is wrong to shed blood over
a question of jurisdiction."

"The forest was never the issue."

"Sometimes it's necessary to
prove a point," Hion said. "How we designate territory
as the charge of one royal house or another is part of our Shapers'
responsibility. Such decisions must be reached through reason
and compromise, and the decision-making process cannot be abandoned
on a whim, or replaced by a show of force. Dea may continue to
refuse us the forest for now, but the princess's death will remind
her that the law cannot be ignored."

The council recognized that the king's
decision was final. Hion leaned back in his chair. "There
is nothing more to say. You are dismissed."

Dael stepped aside to let Brownmother
Thena pass. Damon approached the doorway more slowly, one hand
on his uncle's arm, speaking into Ledo's ear with great intensity.
As they reached the door the prince looked at Dael and smiled.
"My father and I appreciate your support, Captain."

"Thank you, Highness." Dael
bowed his head in respect, and because he did not want the prince
to see the doubt in his eyes. It was his job to support his king's
decisions, but he wasn't very happy with this one.

Damon and Ledo swept past him and
departed. Dael remained where he was until he felt eyes on him
once more. He looked up to find the Redmother standing in the
doorway, her old face filled with hatred.

"This situation is despicable."
Despite her anger, she kept her voice low. "Emlie never plotted
against anyone in her life."

Dael glanced past her at the silent
figure on the throne. Hion, lost in thought, either couldn't hear
them or wasn't bothering to listen. "The evidence, Redmother,
suggests otherwise. His Majesty has no other choice."

"This court should be concerned
less with evidence and more with justice."

There was no answer Dael could give.
Vissa passed him and stalked away, her black skirts swirling around
her ankles. Dael waited until her footsteps faded away before
addressing the throne. "Orders, Your Majesty?"

"See Damon."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

###

Vray could not hold anything in her
memory this morning. She couldn't even remember from moment to
moment whether the sky outside the study room window was cloudy
or clear. Trying to commit the family histories of every person
in the city of Edian to some storehouse in her head was impossible.
Her tutor's voice buzzed like a fly, and made as little sense.
Study and work held no meaning for the young princess. All she
could think of was her father's council meeting.

What will they decide? The
tower walls of the castle seemed to dissolve around Vray as anxious
speculation, instead of family records, filled her head. What
could they decide? She knew what Damon wanted, and why. Nothing
mattered to him more than the prestige and security of the kingdom
of Rhenlan. Whatever best served Rhenlan-a border war to prove
who had jurisdiction over a border village, marriage with an unwilling
bride to cement an alliance with Dherrica, a public execution-was
the course of action he would pursue with all of his energy. Yet,
how could he? How could Father allow it? No show of power was
worth the price of the princess's life.

Was it?

She wished her mother was in Edian
Castle. Mother is never here, a bitter voice far in the
back of her mind reminded her. Vray kept that angry little girl
with her red braids and tear-stained face very deep inside her,
usually. Her mother never listened to her, and rarely involved
herself in the affairs of the kingdom. Vray was used to taking
care of herself. Everyone said she was very mature for a fourteen-year-old.

Parents were supposed to make everything
all right. But Queen Dea had sent her daughter into an enemy's
castle, while Queen Gallia of Rhenlan cared more for her purebred
horses than for her duties as wife and mother. Vray had learned
that lesson well early in life. The nurses and teachers had quietly
whispered it to each other, as if she, with her sharp ears and
talent for observing, hadn't been just across the room when the
servants gathered to gossip. No, it was only to be expected that
Mother would be absent from Edian during this maddening crisis.
Even if she were here, she would probably do nothing to interfere
with Damon. Vray clenched her fists in frustration. Mother never
interfered with Damon. She just smiled, as if his self-indulgence
was amusing.

And I'm not just a jealous little
sister.

Father-and Dael-insisted that it was
not her place to question Damon's decisions as heir. Dael told
her to stay out of Damon's way, while Father told her to be a
dutiful princess. But the things her teachers told her about duty
contradicted everything Damon did. They were ruling Shapers, sworn
to protect and guide their people. Damon was only to happy to
give orders. He did not, in Vray's opinion, care how his decisions
affected the people he led; all he cared about was being obeyed.

Well, she was a dutiful princess.
As was poor Emlie. Vray squirmed restlessly in her chair, checking
the weather outside the diamond-paned window once more. She saw
only clear blue sky, and a flight of birds in the distance, rising
from one of the fields beyond the outskirts of Edian.

Vray's stomach tightened with worry,
and the ache in her head grew worse. If she was so afraid, how
must Emlie be feeling?

"I have to talk to Emlie,"
she said. The words came out as a dry rasp, and she heard a gasp
from her tutor, Danta. Vray realized that she had been talking
to herself. She looked at the startled Redmother and was surprised
to see that Danta's fleshy, wrinkled face had gone pale. Vray's
anxiety for Emlie transformed to anger at the thought that Danta
might forbid her from seeing the jailed princess.

"You don't think it's wise?"
Vray demanded.

Danta's gaze dropped. She bowed her
head, her plump fingers fidgeting with the black material of her
skirt, but she made no answer.

Sometimes I think I can be as scary
as Damon, Vray thought as she rose from her chair. She patted
Danta affectionately on the shoulder but didn't pause long enough
to apologize for being harsh with her. Danta was in no danger.
It was Emlie who needed a kind word while the ruling shapers downstairs
debated her fate.

Vray rushed down the tower stairs,
her blue skirts hitched up and red hair flying. As she reached
the bottom, Dael's familiar voice bellowed, "By the great
crumbling Rock!" For once, he wasn't chastising her. If Dael
had left the audience chamber, then the council meeting was over.
She followed the sound of the curse around the corner and saw
him, already halfway across the stone-flagged courtyard, probably
on his way to the guard barracks. She ran to intercept her friend.

"Not now, Kitten," the guard
captain said as she planted herself squarely in his path. When
she didn't move, Dael gave a most perfunctory bow, then straightened,
swinging his long golden braid back over his shoulder. He tried
to step around her, adding, in a voice dull as unpolished pewter,
"Please, Highness."

His eyes, blue as the deep lake beyond
the town, avoided hers, his face an impassive mask. Vray recognized
the look. He was hungry for some comfort but too angry with himself
to ask. Her hands automatically came up to clasp his upper arms.

"What's happened?" she asked
him.

Dael closed his eyes and swallowed,
clamping down hard on whatever had torn that curse from his lips.
Her brother, probably. Dael trusted her, but he also tried not
to rouse her quick temper where Damon was concerned.

"It's no use, Kitten," he
said. "The law is the law, and there's nothing anyone can
do to stop it now."

"Tell me."

He took a deep breath. "Princess
Emlie must be held accountable for the actions of the guards in
her service."

"That sounds like one of Damon's
arguments," she said angrily. "I've heard them all before."
She began to turn away, and it was Dael's turn to grab her.

"Don't, Kitten."

She stood stiffly in his grasp and
glared at him. "She's barely two years older than me. She
still likes to play in the garden with the kitchen cats!"
Then the implication of his words struck her. "Execution?"

He nodded.

"They're going to kill her?"

He nodded again. She tried to pull
her arm from his grasp, but he held her easily, looking around
in case there were servants or guards about to see them. She was
fourteen, gangling and thin, and he was captain of the king's
guard, no giant but big and strong enough to hold one stubborn
girl. She knew that it embarrassed him when their arguments escalated
into public shouting matches, or when he had to physically restrain
her from doing something he didn't consider wise. He would not
let her rush off to confront her brother; not unless she could
convince him that she knew what she was doing. Dael worried more
about her impetuous behavior than she did.

"King Hion has decided to take
firm action in the matter."

"King Hion decides nothing!"
she snapped back.

"Hush," he warned, shaking
her. "Think-and keep still, Kitten." He'd given her
the pet name during the years he'd helped raise her. He hardly
ever used it now, not since she'd discovered the sport that was
possible between men and women and decided that he would be an ideal partner.
The fact that he used the name now proved showed how distracted
he was. He would never admit it in so many words, but she was
dear to him, and he didn't want to see her do anything foolish.

"How can I keep still?"
she demanded. "Someone has to speak up against this. You
know it all comes back to my brother's pure, blind ambition!"

"Your father doesn't see Damon
the way you do."

"Then I have to show him!"

"There's a glint of battle in
those eyes of yours." He shook his head, fluffing out the
hair surrounding his face. "No. There's nothing you can do."

"Am I not even permitted to try?"

He thought for a moment before answering
carefully. "You're a princess. Hion's daughter. Damon's opposite.
Perhaps you can be of some influence on the king. More likely
not, but who am I to keep you from trying?" He released her
and stepped aside. "Go to your father," he told her.
"He was still in the audience chamber when I left. Go, if
you must. I have work."

She let him by and watched him hurry
out of sight, through the door to the guard barracks. He had a
great deal to organize if the execution was to take place without
any difficulties. An execution that he would have to oversee.

Vray's heart tightened with anguish.

"No," she whispered hoarsely.
She ran for the audience chamber.

###

I've been dying for years now,
Hion of Rhenlan thought as he slumped in his seat, letting the
pain have its way with him for a few minutes, using it to take
his mind off his latest decision. He was alone, as he liked to
be, his son and counselors gone about the business of concluding
the matter. A long time dying for any man, he complained
to the silence. He would have to make it swift and painless for
that poor lamb Dea sent him. Foolish, stubborn woman. He hunched
forward, resting his head in his hands. The pain was very bad
today. He had barely been able to make it through the meeting
without showing his weakness.

He had been a heroic king once, a
proud and conscientious shaper, responsible for freeing his country
from the ravages of the last of the fire bears. Fire-bear wounds
were poisonous, a cumulative poison. Hion had been wounded more
than once in his combats with the creatures. The last time had
been fatal, a slow fatality that even Greenmother Jenil could
not prevent. She could only slow his dying, coming to Edian every
year or so to perform what healing magic she could. Her talent
kept the pain damped down to something he could live with. She
always apologized because there was no cure for him, and wondered,
solicitous in her silly dreamer way, that he lived at all.

Jenil couldn't cure him, but at least
the Greenmother's magic kept his heavily-muscled body from turning
into barrel-chested fat. She masked the ravages of the pain, keeping
his blond hair from going white too quickly, his blue eyes alert
instead of dulled from pain-numbing herbs.

"I'm a stubborn man," he
had told Jenil more than once, and repeated the words into his
hands now. Have to be stubborn, have to live until Damon learns
enough to take my place.

"Father?"

Hion jerked upright, and found Vray
on her knees before his chair. Her cat-eyed face was full of worry.

"What are you doing here?"
he asked gruffly, more annoyed than usual at the girl's resemblance
to her mother, whose slender grace and feline features he'd once
found so attractive.

Vray sat back on her heels, looking
up at him anxiously. "Are you ill?"

Gathering his strength about him,
Hion sat up straight, squaring his shoulders and masking his face
with a scowl. "Silly child."

Odd how neither of his children resembled
him. Damon looked more like Hion's sister, pale-skinned and raven-haired.
Vray was the image of Gallia and her whole red-maned family. The
guardsman Dael, blond and blue-eyed, looked more like him than
his own flesh.

Thinking of Dael and looking at Vray
reminded Hion of something. "What's this I hear about you
at the Golden Owl?"

Vray blushed. "It's a perfectly
respectable inn."

"Where my guard captain spends
much of his off duty time. Leave the man alone, child. If I hear
of him dragging you home once more-"

"That's not important now,"
she cut him off, and got to her feet. Before he could gather enough
air into his lungs to thunder at her disrespect she hurried on.
"I have to talk to you about Emlie. You can't kill her, Father."

Vray was a stubborn, difficult child,
and he had neither strength nor inclination to fight with her
now. Nothing held her attention for long; he would answer her
questions, and she would go away and forget the whole unpleasant
incident. "It's the law, girl. The dispute's not been settled
within any of the precepts the law allows. Dea delegated her authority
to her daughter, and now the girl must pay. I'm only trying to
prevent more deaths."

She stared at him. "Prevent death
by killing? How, Father?"

"It's no affair of yours, Vray.
Go to your studies." She stubbornly remained where she was,
her expression pleading, and let the silence build between them.
Hion finally grew uncomfortable enough to growl, "Well?"

She cupped her elbows in her hands,
pressing her arms close to her body. "Father, there is no
honor in this."

"And what do you know about it?"
Hion demanded. Before the fire bears came, the world had been
full of honor, and laughter and security and magic and all the
other frivolities of those prosperous, untroubled times. By the
time Hion became king, honor and tradition were luxuries that
took time and energy away from the immediate fight for survival.
Damon understood the sacrifices demanded by necessity, but his
daughter never would.

"You're training me to be a Redmother,"
she reminded him angrily. "Damon's Redmother....not that
he'll ever listen to anything I have to say. Not that you listen
to me."

"Your childish arguments have
no place in the council chamber."

"I'm fourteen. Emlie's just sixteen,
unmarried. Doesn't that make her a child, too? Will you kill a
child?"

"She plotted treachery against
me! Against our people!"

"I don't believe that."
She walked away into the shadows near the hearth, then paced back
to confront him once more, chin up, eyes glaring. "I don't
think Damon believes it, either. The girl is a poor negotiator,
that's all, and Damon's pride was hurt when she refused to marry
him. That's the real reason he wants her dead!"

"Your brother's only concern
is the welfare of our people. You would do well to learn from
his example."

"What about Emlie's welfare?
What about Queen Dea?"

"Enough! I've made my decision."
He could no longer concentrate on her naive, jealous accusations.
The pain was consuming him. He wanted to go to his chambers where
he could be alone to scream the agony away. He wanted even more
to be rid of this hornet and her stinging words.

"Be gone, Vray. Now."

"You've made a mistake."
Her words held the tone of a Dreamer's prophecy. Light fell on
her from the room's high windows, turning her hair to flames,
hurting his eyes. "You can stop it, or we can all suffer
for it."

Hion clutched the chair arms and heaved
himself to his feet. Tottering unsteadily he lunged at his daughter,
open palm striking her across the face.

"I said, be gone!" he roared.

She whimpered and collapsed into a
blue heap before him, silenced. For now. Hion gazed down at her.
Her huddled figure roused a dim, guilty memory of the laughing
three-year-old daughter who had enticed him into games of hide-and-seek,
and clambered into his lap in search of affection. He remembered
the first time her innocent exuberance pained one of his old wounds,
and her tears at his anger when he sent her away.

He shook his head to banish the memory.
An explanation or excuse would have been useless then, and would
be useless now. Dear Gallia had taught him that.

The girl raised her head and touched
a cut one of his rings had made in her fine-skinned cheek.

"Be gone," he repeated once
more, and slumped back into his chair.

Shame and sadness mingled in her whispered,
"Yes, Sire." Without looking at him, she pulled herself
to her feet and fled from the room.